Looking for spark

ALLEN Durham will be a marked man as Meralco battles TNT KaTropa for the equalizer in Game 2.

Meralco seeks to address its Game 1 woes when it marches to warpath anew against a well-oiled TNT KaTropa side in Game 2 of their Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup best-of-five semifinal series today at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Game time is at 7 p.m. with the Bolts looking to bring back the same spark, the same intensity that made it successful in the elimination round.

With import Allen Durham serving as the lone man fighting, the Bolts suffered a shooting nightmare as they failed to move the ball well to find scoring opportunities and keep the KaTropa defense guessing.

Durham, a former Best Import awardee, fired 32 points and 21 rebounds, but his seven turnovers definitely hurt Meralco’s chances.

Allein Maliksi paced the locals with 15 points off the bench while Chris Newsome had 14 markers, three rebounds and three steals, but committed six errors as well.

Meralco head coach Norman Black rued their forgettable performance.

“It was a horrible game for us — both offensively and defensively,” Black said.

“We didn’t rebound well and we did a bad job on pick and roll defense. Offensively, we had too many turnovers and very little assists so we didn’t execute well on offense.”

He said it was not the brand of basketball that Meralco possesses.

“It was really uncharacteristic of us not to play as a team. I felt we were too one-dimensional and some guys are dribbling too much and trying to get their shots up. That’s why this is probably our worse output as far as assists is concerned this conference and probably our highest turnover total.”

Black said they are looking to bounce back by playing with cohesion while putting clamps on the KaTropa scorers.

“We have an understanding that if we want to win at this level against TNT, we have to play as a team. And we cannot do that individually,” he said.

“How quickly can we get back on playing as a team again is going to be the key going into the next game.”

But gaining the equalizer and stopping the KaTropa from moving a win away from the best-of-seven finals showdown against the winner of the semifinal tiff between Ginebra and NorthPort are easier said than done.

In fact, despite shooting a sizzling 47 percent from the field topped with 18 assists, the KaTropa are still looking to further damage the morale of the Bolts by neutralizing Durham.

“We have to stop Durham because he was our problem,” said KaTropa head coach Bong Ravena, who drew a big game of 38 points and 14 rebounds from import KJ McDaniels.

“We can’t figure our whether we need to double-team him or not. If we can stop Durham, it will be a big help for us.”